Astin says underdog candidates willing to take a stand on climate change have his attention.

As the final days of the 2018 midterm election season play out, key issues like immigration, hateful rhetoric, the economy, and health care are all being debated fervently. But for some, one political issue has been virtually missing from much of the 2018 midterms: the environment.

“What’s so frustrating to me is that there are issues — a lot of issues — that deserve consideration that aren’t getting into the mind of a real debate,” actor Sean Astin tells Teen Vogue. “So to me, the environment can puncture that stalemate because we’re talking about the lives of 8 billion people.” After the terrifying 2040 timeline for disaster presented in a recent United Nations report, Astin says he is especially dedicated to this cause.

Astin — who made his name as an actor playing roles such as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings and the titular undersize football star in Rudy — has been using Twitter to drum up attention for environmental causes in the midterms. The man who brought Bob Newby to life in Stranger Things says he’s sharing his platform to engage politicians — especially the underdogs — across the country on their stances on the issue.

“The one thing that the characters I’m most known for have in common is they’re underdogs, they’re the little guy,” Astin says. “Bob’s trying to save a space of happiness for Joyce and the kids. There’s something worth protecting there. As soon as he’s brought into it and realizes there’s this world of monsters and stuff that’s much bigger than him, he knows to go with what’s most important to him, and that’s Joyce.”

“Nobody asked him to be a hero, but he does the right thing,” Astin continues. That’s apparently what he looks for in a candidate when he uses his platform of over 334,000 Twitter followers to boost them.

Renee Hoagenson is one of the candidates Astin has taken a shine to. Running in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, Hoagenson says a shoutout from Astin has helped spotlight her concerns about the environment in her district.

“It's not something that comes up as often as one would think that it might,” Hoagenson says about climate change while on the campaign trail. “I will get asked about climate change, but it's not on the top of the mind of the public in the way that you think it might be.”

Hoagenson says she believes Missouri’s 4th — which sits between Kansas City, Jefferson City, and Springfield — is already seeing the effects of an ongoing change to the global environment.

“We definitely are experiencing a lot of heavy rains,” she tells Teen Vogue. “We've got an awful lot of high waters, and I would look for flooding soon. Our rivers are very high right now, and that has happened more frequently than normal, so we've had several hundred-year floods in a much shorter period of time.” Hundred-year floods are so named because they’re only supposed to occur once a century, but, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri saw one in 2015 and another just two years later, in 2017.

“That started in the ’90s and has continued to be a problem, and we're also experiencing some droughts in some other parts of the state that have negatively affected our crops,” Hoagenson continues. “That's the thing I think people don't really understand, is that climate change is about a lot more than weather events.”

Hoagenson has a handy case study in climate-change denial thanks to her opponent in the midterm election: incumbent Republican Vicky Hartzler. Hoagenson specifically called out when Hartzler tweeted during a 2014 cold snap that was setting record lows across the South, “Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!”

“We're going to have some weather patterns that continue to be typical, especially in these early stages of global warming,” Hoagenson explains. “We're already seeing very exaggerated and extreme weather patterns in having several of these hurricanes happening more frequently than usual.”

Despite the science behind it, many Republicans dismiss climate change, to varying degrees. Many say they believe it’s happening, but that they don’t know why. That is starting to change. But for Astin, the party’s stance is frustrating to see.

“Right now it’s very clear that the Republican Party does not prioritize the environment issues and the whole kaleidoscope of things that go into that, and the Democrats do,” he says. But he also understands that within the Democratic Party, there are different levels of priority: “Usually the [Democrats] that don’t have the most support from the party are the ones that respond to me.”

Astin says that aside from Hoagenson’s vocal position on climate change, she caught his eye for her determination.

“Renee has been tenacious,” he shares. “I think tenacity is a really important quality in a congressional representative.” He says, “The kinds of people who are most effective in those realms are tenacious and scrappy.”

Hoagenson, in turn, is grateful to Astin for speaking out. “Every person that has a platform and an ability to reach others, I think it's wonderful to see them doing that work and doing the advocacy that is important for whatever issue it is that they feel passionately about,” she says. “I think that all of us should advocate for the things that we care most about, and if someone has the ability to reach millions of people, wonderful. If they're reaching 10 people, wonderful. I think that we should all do that work together.”

Astin says working in political spaces energizes him because it’s not such a big deal who he is. He enjoys using his platform for good, but finds that young people care more about the issues than about any celebrity advocacy.

“They think it’s cool that an actor is there for a minute,” he explains. “But they’re there for a task. They’re not there to be distracted.”

Hoagenson also has an optimistic take on how young voters consider climate change in their voting decisions.

“They're definitely more likely to ask about it, in my experience,” she says of younger voters. “They definitely understand that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. That's one thing I feel about younger voters: They seem to understand that we're all on the ball together.”